She Smiles With Her Fangs Hidden
by Gevar
Summary: For Hwangbo Yeon-hwa, to survive the world of men is to lie with the wolves and make her bed with the snakes.


She's barely nine when her brother cuts down a burglar. His skinny hands shaking, a bloodied blade clangs onto the ground. Horrified eyes reflecting the life slowly draining out from their attacker.

She's only nine when the new place Mother calls home is full with cobwebs, splintered wood here and there, and the rooms small enough to incite panic out from nowhere. The servants that followed – Mother released one by one when it's clear they can't afford their services. Their own clansmen avoided them like plagues. Cast out for a crime Mother would never commit. By Father no less.

She's only nine when she first tastes an emotion called hunger. Her mother works to provide a meal. But that meal is only for an adult. Not for a cast-out mother and her two young children.

She's only nine when her eyes gets familiarise to her brother burying himself with books. No tutors to linger and guide him around. She sneaks a book or two. Reads it like it's the only lifeline she knows.

She's only nine when the noblewomen won't bat an eyelash at her direction. Vendors outright slaps her hands away from their wares. All forgotten that she once came from the palace they worshiped and feared.

She's fourteen when she returns to the palace, a place she once calls home. With questionable quality hanbok that hangs loose around her figure. She'd been lucky to retain her good looks, so says the palace maids. (But if you look closely, you'd see her hair doesn't shine, nor is her hair black and silky. Her skin is pale. Her lips all cracked. Hwangbo Yeon-hwa doesn't believe the lies they feed her.)

But she's twelve when she learns that she craves for a prize out of her gender's reach. And she keeps that secret locked in her heart. Never to open until she is back to the same place that cast her out first.

Most of all, Hwangbo Yeon-hwa was only ten when she's marked with scars that will never healed. She swears on her life that she'll repay to those deserving with scars of her own making.

* * *

It's been two years since she arrived. Her clothes are of the finest silk, accentuates her figure. Her hair sleek and healthy, it doesn't break at the slightest yank anymore. Her skin's soft to touch, the envy of the palace maids and the other young noble ladies.

She's not the same child she was at fourteen. With the precise upturn of her lips into a half-coy and half a tease of a smile, Yeon-hwa can turn any male gaze to her. Play with the correct words, puff them with flattery, they're hooked onto her finger. For now, Yeon-hwa is not keen on stringing men along.

Her brother, Wang Wook, is not the boy of skin and bones that she remembers. His hands doesn't tremble at the mere sight of blood. His long mane sharply tied into a topknot. His cheeks are not sunken. Dark circles is not a feature of his face anymore. He carries himself with the poise of a married man. His brain is bigger than his heart, she thinks that's his greatest flaw. Still, he's her brother and she his sister – that's all that matters to Yeon-hwa.

She catches the sight of her dearest brother at the pond. By his side, his wife and her sister-in-law. They're on one of their daily walks together. It's a pastime that Yeon-hwa doesn't find beneficial. She supposes her sister-in-law needs it. Her health is a delicate matter. One that her brother doesn't like to talk about.

Her skin porcelain and all ghostly. Brown eyes often glinting sadness when no one's looking. She's grace and softness that Yeon-Hwa doesn't believe _she_ has. Her smile doesn't have the hidden edge that some noble ladies do. It's a smile that Mother wears when she sees her children. But beneath that softness is a resolve made out of steel.

Every now and then, Yeon-hwa glimpses of a younger girl with infectious smile and a cheerful laugh. It's not the woman she calls her sister-in-law. Maybe, in that fleeting glance, Lady Hae reminds her so much of the brother who once was ten.

Her brother and his cautionary glance, worry swirls within those dark eyes. Yeon-hwa's well aware the troubles he carries on his back, hiding it from everyone's eyes. The troubles that Yeon-hwa could spot a mile away. Just as Lady Hae's hawk-like eyes takes in the invisible plights plaguing her husband, makes it her own.

In a way, she thinks Lady Hae is a perfect fit for her brother. Yeon-hwa admires her sister-in-law for the credit her brother doesn't see. Shame that is she's taken by an illness.

She debates briefly, whether to interrupt their private moment. The minute to grace them with her presence passes and she chooses not to. Turning her heels against the opposite direction, Yeon-hwa leaves.

It's no secret that Lady Hae is the driving force behind her union with Yeon-hwa's brother. It saved them from ruins. Their marriage is nothing different than an emperor marrying twenty-nine wives to consolidate his authority. Sometimes the six year old her sleeps to a time where she's anything but royal or noble. A dream worth a thousand smiles.

She's not six. She's not dreaming. She's in Goryeo. She's Queen Sinjeong's only daughter. She's one of Wang Geon's many daughters. She's Hwangbo Yeon-hwa.

It's a lifetime of perpetual paranoia.

 _Women are dispensable_ , Yeon-hwa bears that fact in mind. And in heart. She is nothing but a bargain tool in her father's eyes. She still has a year or so before a marriage is forced on her.

The low murmurs between two passing maids catches her ears. Something about a lone wolf prince heading back home. Ah, Wang So is finally here. Yeon-hwa hasn't seen him in ages. In her spare time, she lends a few minutes musing on the fate of her half-brother.

It's a pleasant surprise to see him here. Yeon-hwa struts along the corridors with a renewed purpose.

* * *

Author's Note : I wrote this as a way of understanding Hwangbo Yeon-hwa, since the show did not provide much. This is all my imagination. In fact, I wrote this even before EP05 aired. So, it might be a little OOC.


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